Ati X1950 series: Which one to choose?

[Gamesua]

I live in Netherlands, the last weeks prices for these really dropped.

Currently, I can get these cards for the following prices (in euros):

Peak X1950Pro 256MB 118
Peak X1950Pro 512MB 134
Sapphire X1950Pro Ultimate 146
MSI X1950XT 256MB 149

Basically, I need to know a few things before I make up my decision.
My biggest point is silence. I want a silent computer so I'd like to know if any of these provide silent coolers. All of these are in my pricerange, however, if I would have to buy a GPU cooler too it might get more expensive for me.
Second comes memory. I am thinking of getting a Samsung Syncmaster 206BW. I think the native resolution of this monitor is 1680x1050 (correct me if I'm wrong). Will 256MB be enough?

Lastly, I have not yet been able to find a few benchmarks with all of these cards compared to each other. Does anyone know of any, or has anyone had experience with these cards?

 

[mitcoes16]

http://www.hwupgrade.com/articles/video/12/the-radeon-x1950pro-ultimate-sapphire-teams-up-with-zalman_4.html

here they says that ASUS and Saphire are the lowest noise cards.

Zalman come with Saphire.

 

[Katzhuu]

In case you are still thinking about this.

Club3D provides X1950 with Arctic Accelero S1, passive cooler. Totally silent and better cooling than normal stock coolers atleast if you have otherwise nice ventilation in your case.

You can also buy that yourself. However atleast Sapphire 1950 Pro (not the Ultimate) has HUGE problems with Voltage Regulator Modules temperatures. You basically can use only the stock-cooler, which can be noisy on a silent system.

My Sapphire with the Accellero S1 ran with passive cooling at 47C on Bioshock (Stock was near 80) at the point where the VRM overheated and shut down the card. With stock cooler there is no problems.

 

[slickku]

get the 1950xt card.. no question about it. I had one and its a great card. Played STALKER @ 1600x1200 with all settings maxed and it worked pretty good. Its a very solid Dx9 card ... much better than 1950pro.

Gl.

 

[nevasumma]

OH YES! Get the X1950XT, however I have the X1950PRO 512mb and I can watch the Simpson's on my right monitor and play games on my left monitor at the same time. I heard that is because of the amount of video memory. Also with upcoming games having larger texture files etc. it may be worth finding a 512mb video card no matter which one you get. The X1950XT 512mb is sooooooo fast and can be made to be much faster. I wish I had one or two of those.